


Almost a Decade

by sanity_not_in_tact



Series: 'Platonic' Phan [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Existential Crisis, Milk, Mirrors, Shopping, i actually had this experience once, it's both terrifying and incredible at the same time, it's not even really a 'crisis' per se, juxta-position, more like a sudden mind-blowing realization, okay enough tagging now you get the picture, yeah I'm prone to existential mind-explosions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:57:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3729781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanity_not_in_tact/pseuds/sanity_not_in_tact





	Almost a Decade

Dan looks in the mirror for approximately ten minutes total in the morning to brush his teeth and straighten his hair, and approximately not at all for the rest of the day.  
It's always been like this, and, to be honest, Dan had never given it enough thought to question it. That was always his routine, and it happens almost subconsciously.

Today, however, is a particularly cold, rainy day. He's staying inside while Phil goes out to buy the necessities Dan's been too lazy to go get himself, and he's standing in front of his full-length mirror, staring at the eyes staring at his eyes staring at his eyes. It's not like he avoids his reflection. He supposes he sees it ever day as he walks past the mirror, but he never really looks. Not closely, at least.

He's about a foot taller than he was when he last did this. He remembers it. He grabs the corner of his desk for balance and then bends his knees a little, so that he's the hight he was then.

How old had he been last time? 14? He can't really remember. 23 had seemed so old to him then. An adult. 23 seemed like hundreds of years away at the time, and yet here he is, in this moment, 23 years old and at least a foot taller than he was shortly before his growth spurt. Scary times. School wasn't kind to him. Was school really kind to anyone? He had few friends at the time, and any he did have seemed distant and didn't seem to care all that much. He remembers wondering what it would be like to be legal, to have a driver's licence, to get totally smashed and to not have school. 

He tries to wrap his head around it. He'd been a totally different person back then, as is to be expected. He was incredibly immature, in every way possible, and spectacularly bad at pretty much everything he did, video games and waisting hours on the Internet being the exception to that rule. At least that hasn't changed, although he can play the piano now and has basic editing skills, and a bunch of useless facts crammed into his brain from university that will absolutely never serve him.

14 year old Dan. What had he expected his 23 year-old self to be back then? Significantly less than how he actually turned out, which comes as a pleasant surprise. He lives with his best friend -- the very best person in the world, in his opinion -- he's YouTube famous, setting up a tour with Phil and has almost finished writing a book with him. Actually, now he thinks about it, most of what he's achieved came at least partly from Phil.

Maybe friends really did make everything better, just as he'd thought back then.

Nine years ago. That's almost a decade. Time is such a weird concept. And that's just what it is -- a concept. Nothing more. At least, that's the theory. How long did they say it takes to replace every cell in the body? Seven years? Something like that. That would make him literally a completely different person. He's changed completely, and yet he's still the same Dan that looked at himself in his mother's full length mirror at age 14 and wondered what it would be like 100 years in the future when he's an actual adult with an adult life and adult.. Stuff. Well, now 14 year-old Dan knows what it's like, because he's still the same Dan. But he's not. And 14 year-old Dan actually didn't know what it was like and he never will, because he's not 14 year-old Dan anymore. 

In fact, he's not even the same Dan he was just a second ago, and he didn't know what it would be like to be the Dan of a few seconds later back then, either.

He straightens his legs and looks around. He looks down at his feet, how far they are from the ground. Further away than before, right? But they don't seem like it. Or do they? He looks back up at his reflection. What did he look like then? He can't really remember. 

He's an adult. He still can't get over that. He squints at his reflection and tries to remember what it was like to look up at a 23 year-old when he was 14. He remembers intimidation? He laughs at the thought. Dan Howell, intimidating. That's a thought. 

He stops squinting at his own reflection, straightens up a little and then reaches out to touch the mirror, his reflection -- exactly what he looks like, but not quite. 

And it hits him.

He can see it. For the first time in 9 years he can really see himself. Dan Howell, 23, hairstyle that went out of fashion half a decade ago, slightly tanned skin, tall, lanky, fairly average...

Adult.

Jesus Christ. 

He's a grown up. He's the sort of person that 14 year old Dan thought he'd never be. Right now. In this moment. And one day he'll be 50.

One day he'll be 50, and he'll look in a full length mirror and think back to Dan Howell, 23 years old, hairstyle that went out of fashion half a decade ago, slightly tanned skin, tall, lanky, fairly average and completely unable to picture himself in 27 years time when he'll be 50. But he'll be able to picture it then, because he'll be 50, and he'll know. But the Dan Howell of this exact moment can't know. He can never know. He can't know if he'll ever even reach 50 in the first place.

"Hey Dan! I got milk! And some fruit because the fruit bowl was looking tragically devoid of  
fruit-" Phil's voice cuts off as he clings to the doorframe and swings his weight around the corner, catching sight of Dan, looking up at him with a dazed look on his face, like he's only half processing what he was saying.

"... You need some tea." Phil concluded.

"What? What do I need tea for?"

"Because you've just had an existential crisis."

"How do you know?"

Phil shrugs. "You have this kind of dazed look that you only pull when you're on your phone or when you've just suffered from an existential crisis, or are still suffering from one."

"... It's not really a crisis... Well it is... Actually, yeah. Tea sounds great."


End file.
